A Bright Christmas
by depplove
Summary: Roger's dreaming of a bright Christmas while Mark mulls over the events of the past year with him.


This is just a one-shot that I wrote for school last year. I realized that I never posted it, so I was like, 'OHEMGEE! MUST POST!'. It takes place basically one year since that fateful Christmas. Sooo yeah, enjoy, everbody, and don't forget to review!

"_I'm dreaming of a whiiiite Christmaaas… Just like the ones I used to knooow_…"

Roger Davis plucked the thin strings on his guitar, getting the chords exactly in tune with his electric adaptation of "White Christmas." He ran his hands over the smooth red wood of the instrument and sighed in happiness, thinking of Mimi. Have a nice Christmas for once, _please_ have a nice Christmas. Like last year's…

"Feliz Navidad."

He looked up and straight into the grinning face of a young man with round glasses and spiked hair the color of honeycomb. The man raised something thin and rectangular, covered in red and white candy cane wrapping, and brandished it in front of Roger's face.

"Mark Cohen, I'm dreaming of a _bright_ Christmas," Roger sang, taking the present from his grasp and carefully tearing the wrapping paper away. "Thanks, man."

"No problem," Mark replied and cleared the desk that Roger was sitting on with his familiar fender guitar. Old bubblegum wrappers, two music magazines, and a bottle of Roger's AZT were sent askew as Mark seated himself next to him on top of the desk. Roger ripped the last of the wrapping away and stared in awe at a book of guitar music of famous Rolling Stones songs.

"How did you know?" he asked, shaking his head and gaping at the famous open-mouth-with-a-large-tongue logo. "How did you _know_?"

Mark's grin widened. "You've only been talking about it all damn month, buddy. How would I _not_ know?"

Roger beamed and ruffled his roommate's hair. "And mazel tov to you, too. Did I say that right? What are you getting for Hanukkah?"

He shrugged. "Anything, I guess. Whatever dear ol' mom and dad send me from good ol' Scarsdale."

Roger didn't bother to hide a small smile as he pulled a box in widely striped blue and white wrapping paper out from under the desk. "Anything like this, I suppose?"

Mark took the package and eyed it with faux suspicion. "It's not a bomb, is it?"

Roger cocked an eyebrow in response. "Hey, you never know."

Tearing the paper stripe by Hanukkah-colored stripe, Mark's clear blue eyes widened as more and more of the box underneath became visible. Soon, the parcel was revealed: a brand new camera for his documentary about the Bohemian lifestyle in New York City.

"No…" Mark whispered, running the hand that wasn't clutching the box through his hair. "You _didn't_…"

"What? Should I take it back and ask for a Torah instead? Does the Torah even _relate_ to Hanukkah at all?"

Mark rolled his eyes at his long-time friend's sarcasm and brought the box closer to his face. Roger could see the picture of the expensive camera on the front reflected in his glasses. What a sweet, loveable dork Mark was.

"Thank you," was all that he managed to say.

"Yeah, yeah," Roger answered, trying to give a nonchalant shrug as he picked up his guitar again and started to slowly pluck out the tune to "Satisfaction," using the Rolling Stones songbook as a guide.

After listening to the refrain, Mark stared at him. "We're low on cash, aren't we?"

He nodded.

"_Roger_," he whined, "You shouldn't have gotten the camera for me. It's not worth it. Sure, I'd love to have one, but we've always had empty wallets. Why dig further into them?"

Roger gave him a soft glare in response. "Friends come before cash, isn't that right? That's what _Angel_ taught us."

The tiny loft became silent at the mention of his name. Roger glanced up from his instrument and observed the faraway look in Mark's eyes. "What?"

"Nothing," he replied with a bleak expression. "Take your AZT."

Roger bent over to receive the bottle of pills from the ground that Mark had knocked over when he sat down. After grabbing the small, cylindrical container and sitting back up, he screwed the cap open quietly and tapped the edge, watching one of the capsules fall into his hand. He studied the pill, noticing how it was white with a blue colored band around the middle.

"The same thing is _not_ going to happen to me," he assured Mark. "Don't get your boxers in a bunch, okay?"

Mark frowned. "We could never be sure, could we? With what happened to Angel…"

Roger had begun to swallow the pill, and at the mention of Angel's name again, he nearly choked. Coughing the tablet back into his throat, he stared stonily at Mark and glanced down. The coughing fit that he had lapsed into had caused the rest of the AZT pills in the bottle to spill over the desk and onto the floor below. Mark bent down with him to help pick them up one by one and place them back into the small container.

"Look, I'm sorry, but we have to face facts," he said to Roger seriously, peering at him over his glasses. "Angel is… gone. There's nothing we can do."

Roger looked down and became greatly interested in a crack on the wood floor. "I could only imagine how _Collins_ took it."

"Collins will find someone new," Mark assured him, dropping three pills back into the bottle.

Roger glared in response and said, his tone rising, "Remember how we vowed on New Year's Eve that nothing would tear us apart? _Nothing_? Well, just look at what happened to Angel. He tore us apart _and_ he tore out Collins' heart."

"Stop being so poetic."

"I can't help it," he said as he lowered his voice to a murmur. "I'm an artist after all. Just ask Mimi."

"Oh, I know it," Mark said, handing him the cap to the AZT container. "That song that you sang to her when she was about to… Well, you know. That was beautiful."

Roger furrowed his brow and screwed the top back on after a thoughtful silence. "AIDS gets the best of us."

Mark frowned and shook his head. "Don't you say that, Roger," he insisted. "Don't you ever say that. Angel may not have been lucky, but Mimi was." After pausing for a moment, he contradicted himself, "No, Mimi wasn't lucky. Mimi had you. _You_, Roger. I swear that if it wasn't for you singing that song to her, she wouldn't have lived."

Roger sighed. "I remember the night like it was yesterday…"

"Come on," Mark interrupted. "It's Christmas Eve, and we're supposed to be out having fun. _Fun_, Roger, ever heard of it? Or are you too wrapped up in your emo thoughts, Mr. 'Struggling Poetic Artist'? Let's have a bright Christmas, like what you were dreaming of."

Roger grinned as he placed the bottle of pills back on the desk and began to lace up his Chuck Taylors. "Fine, fine, I'll go out. I need to get out of the loft, anyways. We'll pick up Mimi on the way, okay?"

"Whatever you want, Roger," he replied, thumping his best friend on the back. "Whatever you want."

As they headed out the door, Mark shouted to the streets, "A merry Christmas and a happy Hanukkah to all –"

Roger finished, "With or without AZT… And to all a good night."


End file.
